


The Unkillable Rodney McKay

by schweinsty



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: BAMF Rodney McKay, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 13:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7978474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweinsty/pseuds/schweinsty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Occasionally, people mistake Rodney McKay for a weak link on the team.</p>
<p>It's not a mistake they ever make twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unkillable Rodney McKay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).



> Written for brumeier over on comment-fic on lj.

Chanet couldn't believe his luck. Three captives, fit and prime for slavery, waltzed into his village and offered themselves up like sheep to a slaughter. They took the food and drink he offered them like fools, guzzled it down without having the loud-mouthed one check it for drugs first, and went down with absolutely no fuss—save for the loud one, who complained about the limcho juice they dressed the food with and ate nothing. But that was irrelevant.

And on top of bringing themselves, the group brought weapons with them. Several odd-looking gun things and a whole mess of knives, tucked everywhere in their clothes. The big one had a Satedan gun, though Chanet was pretty sure the woman was Athosian. Curious, then, that they followed the lead of the smaller man with the wild hair. He didn't look like a great warrior, but he must be fearsome if he was held in such respect.

That man was the first one up. He blinked awake, jerked upright, and snarled. “What did you do? Where's Rodney?”

“Rodney?” Chanet walked up near the holding cage.

“Rod-ney.” The scruffy-haired one glared, which was impressive considering the headache he must have. “Our friend. The other man we came with.”

Chanet blinked.

Very curious indeed.

“The loud-mouthed one?” Chanet turned back turned back to the knife in his lap. Excellent balance. “He should be dead by now. I told Gatosh to throw him off the cliff of Sa'anesh. He'll be no good as a pack slave, so I had no need of him.”

The fluffy-haired one got very loud then. Chanet ignored him for a while, but the shouting and the threats (“Now listen here,” he said, as if Chanet could turn his ears on and off at will) grew tiresome after a few minutes, so Chanet shot him with a tranquilizer dart and enjoyed the quiet. The woman was still unconscious from the food, and the Satedan was awake but pretending to be asleep in the corner—doubtless waiting for someone to come near enough to grab them by the throat and take them hostage—so Chanet settled in to enjoy his new weapons in peace.

Things were still peaceful when Gatosh returned.

“My friend!” Chanet said when Gatosh moved into view 

Gatosh, oddly, did not seem to appreciate Chanet's excellent mood. He looked pale and sickly, and his face shone with sweat. That was particularly odd, as he was wearing the dark jacket the loud one had worn when the fools came to the village. Gatosh was not, Chanet knew, the sharpest of men, but even he could manage taking off a jacket if he grew hot.

Perhaps the loud one had infected him with an offworld illness.

“My friend Gatosh,” Chanet said, “Why are you wearing a jacket if you are cold? Are you unwell?”

Gatosh stopped when he was three feet away and didn't sit down. His eyes darted back and forth between Chanet and the holding cage, and he wet his lips with his tongue like he did that time he accidentally shot Maken in the foot with an arrow.

“Gatosh,” Chanet said again. He set aside the knife and pulled himself to his feet. “What went wrong? Did the loud one give you trouble?”

Gatosh made a strangled noise. “Umm.”

Chanet thought he saw the one with the crazy hair twitch, but that was impossible. The tranquilizer had surely hit him.

“The lou-eh, the doctor. Doctor McKay. I took him to throw off the cliff, as you said.”

Chanet nodded.

“But he had a knife hidden inside his jacket. He tried to stab me. I overpowered him, of course, but we were only halfway to the cliff. I thought it might be better to kill him there and throw him over the cliff when he was dead, just in case.”

Chanet stared. Gatosh had his good points, occasionally, but he did tend to go on when he was nervous. “And?”

Gatosh swallowed. “And so so I decided to shoot him, and I had my gun, but it turned out he had a—a sort of electric prod hidden in his sock, and it knocked me unconscious.”

There. Chanet was sure he'd seen the hairy one's fingers move, but—but no matter. That could wait. “So how did you kill him?”

“Well,” Gatosh said. He took a deep, quavery breath. “I didn't.”

He unzipped the jacket and--

“Go McKay.”

Chanet dimly registered the fluffy-haired one's consciousness with concern, but most of his attention was taken by Gatosh.

“Is that a _bomb_?”

Gatosh jerked back.

“You brought a bomb back to my village? To my house? Gatosh—”

“He said if I didn't, he'd blow me up.” Gatosh dropped to his knees. “I swear, Chanet, I only came here under extreme duress.”

Chanet grabbed his knife.

“Also, he said to wait to kill me until I told you two things. First, he wants the three of them free with a one-mile head start or he'll blow us up, and second,” Gatosh reached into his jacket pocket and took out a transmission device with the send button taped down. “He's been listening to our conversation, and and if you don't do precisely as he says, he'll blow the whole village up.”

Chanet set the knife down.

“Dr. McKay,” Gatosh said, “Was very clear on that last point.”

In the end, he didn't kill Gatosh, though it was a near thing. The last of Dr. McKay's instructions were to set the bomb in the abandoned field behind the village. It blew up quite spectacularly.

The travelers never never came back to Chanet's village. In fact, fewer and fewer of Chanet's trading partners kept coming through the Stargate.

There'd been advisory sent out, they said. They'd been told their trade treaties would go nowhere unless they stopped dealing with slavers.

Gatosh thought it was Dr. McKay behind it all, and occasionally ventured the opinion. Chanet always told him to shut his fool mouth, but sometimes, in the dead of night when he couldn't sleep, he lay awake in bed and wondered.


End file.
